George Mason KEEN on new teaching mindsets

Engineering Unleashed is a site where KEEN members share knowledge, creating "cards" where they publish projects and ideas. The following cards from George Mason faculty are on the site.

Entrepreneurially Minded Learning in a New Civil Engineering Elective Course: Part I - Boom!, by Girum Urgessa

Campus Navigator Project for freshmen students, by Humaira Akhtari

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George Mason University's College of Engineering and Computing (CEC) is making the most of its membership in KEEN (Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network), a nationwide network of 66 institutions, which it joined in December 2023.

Girum Urgessa, professor of civil engineering in the Sid and Reva Dewberry Department of Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering, and Director of Student Leadership and Success, is the school's KEEN lead. His first step as a KEEN evangelist was meeting with all nine departments. "We discussed the benefits for our faculty, our student body, and our college," he said.

Urgessa (right) at an Engineering Unleashed faculty development workshop. Photo provided.

KEEN's goal is "instilling the entrepreneurial mindset in 100 percent of undergraduate engineering and computing students," specifically focusing on a learning framework called the '3 C's': curiosity, connections, and creating value. When instilling KEEN elements into instruction, faculty don't need to develop new courses but rather rethink their teaching approach.

"Faculty can be intentional about fostering curiosity, making connections, and getting students to integrate information from different sources in meaningful ways," said Urgessa. "And whether through a classroom exercise or a co-curricular activity, we need engineering and computing students to think about creating personal or societal value in a larger context."

Several CEC faculty attended three of KEEN's 2024 summer workshops, fully paid for by the Kern Family Foundation, which launched KEEN. Urgessa calls these workshops a "gold standard," helping faculty enhance teaching skills and elevate activities beyond the classroom, such as undergraduate research and student club engagement.

The KEEN Entrepreneurially Minded Learning Framework. Photo courtesy KEEN.

"The most common feedback I get from faculty is, 'How can I incorporate and measure mindset learning?'" said Urgessa. "A great thing about KEEN is that there are already approved learning outcomes for this. One of my favorite outcomes is to 'persist through and learn from failure.' So when teaching, I can incorporate a problem where students fail several times before arriving at a final solution or design, but I intentionally allow time for them to learn from these repeated failures and reflect."

To ensure full KEEN integration, CEC established the inaugural Mason KEEN Faculty Learning Community, a group of eight faculty from several departments who have attended KEEN workshops or conferences and meet monthly to share classroom implementation experiences.

By joining KEEN, CEC faculty are supporting students who are prepared to enter the workforce and are ready to make positive contributions in a rapidly changing world.